Exercises in the morning are good for our brains and learning
Tuesday, January 27th, 2015
Today was another miserable start to the day, weather wise and before we knew it, Mr. Sun came out and shone in the sky and it was quite warm. Michaela and Giorgia were so happy because they had rain boots on and could splash in the puddles. Our teachers wiped down the slide and swings so we 
could use them together with the climbing frame. We are looking forward to playing upstairs in our Discovery Area when the weather gets warmer. Our plants there are growing really well because there has been so much rain and we will soon have some reflecting colours on the
lattice, which make patterns on the deck. Our teachers are adding more and more things to the area so that we can experiment and explore when we are playing there.
During free play time we had one table where we joined beads together. Usually we thread beads but today we used “pop beads”. We had to pop them together and then when we wanted to take them apart, we had to pull them. Sometimes we heard an actual pop when we pushed them in or pulled them apart. Manuel made a long necklace 
and Giorgia made a necklace as well.
We had to pack away earlier because today we had another gymnastics class with Tanaka sensei. Today we did our usual exercises and warm up together with games that we play each week. There were a few new exercises to learn today, which was great fun especially since we love challenges. Today we had to jump over one mat; then jump on 
two mats, touch the cushion, hop, touch the second cushion and go and stand in the line. All of these instructions help train our memory and we also watch our friends carefully in case we were not sure of something. In the next game, we did a somersault, touched the cushion, hopped and touched the second cushion. Phew! The last game was called ‘falling down’ 
which is “ochita” in Japanese. Tanaka sensei walked around the room singing “Ochita, ochita” and we sang back to him “Nani ga ochita?” When you translate it into English is says “Falling down, falling down” and we say “what fell down?”
If Tanaka sensei said food, then we had to pretend to catch the food and eat it. He said juice fell down, an orange and soup. When he said a scary thing fell down, we had to pretend that we were sleeping and he pretended to be a lion or a tiger. It was a bit scary. He never caught us 
though! Phew!
When we were downstairs, we read the book called “Don’t you dare, Dragon”. You can put your finger into the dragons head as it is sort of like a puppet. The story is about a dragon that breathes fire, like all other dragons, and it always seems to be a problem. When it goes ice skating it melts the ice and no one seems to like him very much. In fact they don’t want him around. So he goes away feeling disheartened and rejected when suddenly he hears voices calling him. It is a group of animals 
who are having a birthday party and they need his fire to light the candles on their birthday cake. His heart lifts and he feels so happy knowing that he is needed. They are grateful to him for helping them and invite him to share their cake and have fun. It is possible that we could feel this way one day and we hope that “the tide changes” really quickly for us, as it did for the dragon.
When you look at the photos of us in class each day, you can see what fun we are having. We spent some time at the office writing, drawing, cutting, taping and taking business cards. Some of the staff at Ohana, gave us their old Business Cards which we keep in our office. We love these cards and every day, one of us takes one and holds onto it throughout the day. Yesterday Koh chan took one with him to the park. We like pretend play and spend time going to the office most mornings and having Business Cards, is great! Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel